The Border Bookmobile is a research platform and mobile exhibition of books, artist projects, photographs and ephemera about the urban history of the Windsor-Detroit region and other border cities around the world. The collection is housed in a 1993 Chrysler Voyager minivan that travels throughout the region. During Dare-Dare's residency at the Imagination Station in Detroit, we set up for two days between the houses and Roosevelt Park, the space in front of Michigan Central Station, one of Detroit's iconic ruins. This location is also close to a train tunnel that runs between Canada and the US as well as the contested site for transborder infrastructure affiliated with the privately owned Ambassador Bridge. During our time at the Imagination Station we interviewed local residents about their impressions of Windsor (across the bridge) as well as any perceived changes at the border. More information available at borderbookmobile.net

The Border Bookmobile is a research platform and mobile exhibition of books, artist projects, photographs and ephemera about the urban history of the Windsor-Detroit region and other border cities around the world.
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OCTOBER 13-15, 2011 Imagination Station Detroit
The Bookmobile took part in the weekend festivities that marked the culmination of Dare-Dare’s residency at the Imagination Station. This location, across from Roosevelt Park and Michigan Central Station, was a significant one for the Border Bookmobile as it is the exit point for the Windsor-Detroit train tunnel as well as the hotly debated Ambassador Bridge.

Andrew Herscher’s Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit. Rather than seeing Detroit as an urban problem that needs to be solved, Andrew Herscher suggests that we regard Detroit as a “novel urban formation” and a site “where new ways of imagining, inhabiting, and constructing the contemporary city are being invented, tested, and advanced.” Andrew Herscher is a writer and theorist whose work considers architectural and urban forms of political violence; his research has focused on locations as seemingly disparate as the Former Yugoslavia and more recently, Detroit. He teaches at the University of Michigan where he is cross appointed between the School of Architecture and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Between 2005 – 2009 he chaired the Rackham Interdisciplinary Seminar on Human Rights.
A discussion between Andrew Herscher, Grant Yocom (Lecturer in Philosophy, Oakland University) and Justin Langlois (Director, Broken City Lab) will take place on critical responses to urban crisis in this region and others.